Have you ever been in the situation where your iPod or iPhone is running a tethered jailbreak and then the battery dies, or you are forced to reboot it after problems, or after installing a tweak that needs a reboot? Has this ever happened to you in a place where there isn't a computer available with Redsn0w for you to use? BigBoss has a solution that will at least make your device usable until you get the chance to boot tethered using Redsn0w again.

Usually when your iDevice powers off after being jailbroken tethered, you will be unable to power it on. It will hang on the Apple logo forever. It turns off fine, but it won't turn on. This new tweak available for free from BigBoss will allow you to reboot your iDevice and use every stock app on the iDevice. There are of course, some caveats to this, because nothing this awesome can be flawproof – you will not be able to use Mail and Safari until you boot tethered. This brings more convenience to your tethered jailbreak. Say your iPhone dies and you need to make a call, but you don't have a computer to boot tethered and all you have is a wall charger. If you charge it up, you will be able to turn it on (jailbreak tweaks and settings will be dormant and unusable until you boot tethered) and you will be able to text and make phone calls regardless of having been tethered. The iDevice will take just a tad longer to boot up than normal, but this is expected. This is the hack taking its effect on the device.

How Do I get it?
You won't find it in the main BigBoss repo. You will need to add the following repo:http://thebigboss(dot)org/semitether/
(that is a "." instead of a "(dot)" of course – I used the parenthesis for linking purposes.)

When you add that repo, install the Semi-tether from it, then reboot, then boot tethered. You are now Semi-tethered and will be able to reboot your iDevice in a Semi-tethered state.

Personally, I am unable to connect to iTunes with my iPod Touch 4G after installing this, as well as a couple of friends of mine. iTunes brings up an error saying that it cannot connect to the iPod Touch. This isn't much of a problem though, since most of my syncing is done over the cloud and my iPod Touch running iOS 5 is PC-free. So if you are worried about the iTunes error, don't be. You really don't even need iTunes anymore.

So just to repeat on the upsides to this. You will be able to call/text, download apps/media, listen to music. You just won't be able to surf the web or send/read email until you boot tethered again. The idea of this release is to allow you to get out of the tether loop so that you can at least use your device if it is an emergency. Once you boot tethered again, you will be able to use your jailbreak downloads as usual. Nothing will be lost.

So will you be installing the Semi-Tether on your iDevice? Are you happy that something of this nature was released? Share a comment below!

I reckon we'll get an untether for all devices at or around christmas, this way alot of people have the new devices (i4s/ipad2) and as many people possible can use it while it's action. by then I think we'll have a 5.0.3

OK so I installed this but it won't leave the apple logo after reboot. I can hear everything else (voice control, taking a screenshot) but will not leave the apple logo. Rebooted twice, still nothing. Don't try it until it's out of beta.

OK so I installed this but it won't leave the apple logo after reboot. I can hear everything else (voice control, taking a screenshot) but will not leave the apple logo. Rebooted twice, still nothing. Don't try it until it's out of beta.

You need to boot tethered before you try it. Works fine for me after that.

OK so I installed this but it won't leave the apple logo after reboot. I can hear everything else (voice control, taking a screenshot) but will not leave the apple logo. Rebooted twice, still nothing. Don't try it until it's out of beta.

In redsn0w, go to Extras - Just Boot.
Follow instructions and you'll back to normal....
You've now experienced what a tethered JB is!!!